


Mined and Carved in Erebor

by werpiper



Series: in the icing: Layers side stories [10]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bloodplay, Bondage, Can be read standalone, Complete, Cutting, Genderfuck, Medicinal Drug Use, Nonbinary Dwarves, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Scarification, cathartic sex, lying by omission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:18:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8620690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: In Erebor reclaimed, Dwalin must regain himself after the loss of Thorin and the heirs.  Nori helps, as advised by other members of the Company.  Umm, lots of kinky smut and some genderfuck, mostly in chapter 4.





	1. asking your brothers

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be "hurt/comfort" day for Nwalin Week, but went totally fractal and turned into a huge piece of work. Post-Layers -- this is the Nori POV of the first sentence of chapter 106, actually. Could probably be read independently. See the tags for gory details.

Dwalin had no more scars at the end of the Quest than he had at the beginning. He was only bigger than ever, the miles and battles told out in heavy muscles and longer hair. But a light had gone out of his eyes, and Nori missed it.

She didn't miss the Arkenstone, which lingered in her stone-sense like everything else she'd ever stolen, shining frigid and far away. It called to her, nightmare or ecstatic vision. She wished she could summon Dwalin like that, or indeed that anything would. He was huge and hot and inevitable as always, but stilled in a way she could not have imagined; a war-engine shut down for peacetime. He ate the meals she brought him, ran through soldier's drills like an automaton, spoke when spoken to, slept a great deal, and never left their chambers. To test him, she shut the door and spent two nights and a day following Ori and Bifur around the libraries. They spoke Khuzdul together when they forgot she was near, which was often. When she returned, Dwalin was snoring, and from the looks of the place he'd been sketching on the slates and hadn't eaten a thing.

In desperation, she sought out Balin. Of course there was her own elder brother with him, polishing mithril relics while Balin muttered and made notes on reams of old paper. Nori had to laugh -- there were scores of strangers in Erebor now, Dain's soldiers and engineering corps, but Thorin's Company still lived in each others' pockets, as they had the road. Dori's face lit up when he saw her, and nothing would do but that they should break off and have tea. He flaked delicate scrapings from tea-bricks stamped with the year of Nori's birth, drew water from a cold tap to rinse them and a hot tap to steep them, and served in great mugs hewn from single crystals. Dori's eyes never left her, and Balin's seemed to laugh over the brim of his cup. Nori gave up on any notions of discretion or subtlety. "It's Dwalin," she said, and both elders nodded gravely. "He's... he's not right, and I'm worried."

Dori's lips pursed, and they both looked at Balin. He was no longer laughing. "Well," he said, and coughed, then "well" again. Dori nearly scowled at him, which surprised Nori, who was used to Dori's glares upon herself. Balin straightened up. "He's lost Thorin," he said, looking back and forth between the Ris, "they were like... brothers." Nori and Dori exchanged a glance, mostly of surprise. "Not like me and him, not like you two and Ori," Balin rushed on, "like Fili and Kili," and he turned red as a beet. He set his mug down and might have come to his feet, but Dori took his hand, and Nori knew the strength of that grip. Balin shifted, smoothed his robes, and took another sip of tea, and Dori let go. Balin looked away from him to face Nori directly. "They were very close all their lives, my brother and our King," he said crisply. "And Dwalin and I both loved and taught our cousins the princes. The loss is terrible to us all, but for him more than any other, save perhaps our Lady Dis. And she, at least, was spared the battlefield." Balin looked down at his hands, and Nori wondered if, under his gloves, he had as many scars as Dwalin did. "He may not be mended until Mahal's hands are upon him, though I pray he finds other work for his own hands in this life. He would not have the kingship." Dori gaped and Balin snapped, "Don't look like that. My little brother's no less clever than Dain, for all he acts like an ox. We would have lost that battle, were it not for Dwalin."

"You could have --" Dori broke in, but Balin quelled him with a look. Nori was impressed.

"I could not." Balin stopped, weighing his words as Dwalin never seemed to, then shook his head. "There is nothing I would not do," he said low, "to see Dwalin well and happy. But I do not know what he needs, now that the Mountain is regained and he wants none of its government. He has never much cared for riches and treasures, or even for crafting; his love was all for friends and kin and battle." Balin was looking straight at Nori, and she shifted in her seat.

"We've had enough of the last," she said. "Not even Dwalin could want more of it. But he has to want something, or he'll never leave that room." Balin and Dori looked at one another, then back at her, and Nori laughed. "He doesn't want me _much_ ," she admitted. "He's always.... polite. I bring food and sometimes he eats it. But it's like he doesn't care about anything, doesn't think about anything. He sleeps and sketches, does his exercises, and sleeps some more." Surely their big brothers must understand, must be able to help? "What can we _do_?"

But the look they exchanged was helpless, and for awhile they all sat silently, drinking tea. Nori scuffed her feet on the floor. She wished she hadn't asked, and she tried to think of someone else who might help. But at length Dori mumbled, "I had a conversation with Dwalin once. In Mirkwood," and Nori's head snapped up. Dori was gazing into his tea and biting his lip. "I was heartsick there, and of all people... I wouldn't have expected to talk to him. Especially not about, well, anything. But we had a watch together, one... night..." He broke off, and Balin patted his hand.

"Things were very strange in Mirkwood." Balin almost smiled as he spoke.

Dori nodded, and now it was his turn to blush. Nori could not help be amused that Dori's blush brought roses high on his cheeks, brightening his eyes, whereas Balin's made him look like a root vegetable. In this pretty state, Dori rushed on, "Indeed everything was. And I, we, had been there before -- you might not remember, Nori, you were only little. I was very frightened, the first time, and then again when we were back in the forest again. Anyway, I ended up talking about it, to Dwalin while we were on watch. And afterwards he took me to you, my dear," the blush reached Dori's ears, and he smiled almost shyly. "Well. The woods were no better after that, of course. But I was better. And I'm grateful to Dwalin for his part of that."

Nori squinted at her brother, entirely confused. She remembered when Balin and Dori first lay together -- a night in the wicked forest no darker than any other, as far as she recalled. "I can't just tell him to comfort himself."

"Of course not," said Dori and rushed on. "There was something else. I was having trouble staying awake, and he gave me something to drink. It was from the elves, and he warned me it might make me feel strange, and it did." He glanced sidelong at Balin, who only nodded gravely. "Afterwards I asked Oin about it, and he said there were medicines like that. For the mind and heart, in bad times, to help one move towards healing." He hesitated, then plunged on: "It's not only the medicine, though, it was having Balin there to help me. And Dwalin himself, too. But you'd be there for Dwalin..." He trailed off again.

Nori rose and clapped her brother's shoulder. "Yes I would," she answered decisively, "and I'll ask Oin for help. Thank you both very much." She bowed to them and took her leave. She still didn't have much idea what they had been going on about, but it seemed like _something_. Perhaps Oin could be more direct, either because he knew what he was talking about or because neither Dori nor Balin ever spoke plainly if they could contrive to do otherwise. She missed Dwalin's straightforward ways more than ever, and was determined to hear his low voice rumbling away in her ear again, whatever it took.


	2. appeal to authority

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori consults with various other members of the Company.

Talking to Oin took fortitude and persistence. She trailed him around the infirmary, which was full of Men and Dain's soldiers, for three hours before cornering him alone in a storage room. The healer might or might not be hard of hearing, but he definitely took delight in being embarrassing. He regarded Nori narrowly over his magnifying spectacles, and bellowed, "WERE HIS ORGASMS MORE REGULAR BEFORE THE BATTLE?"

She was grateful that her beard hid her blush, and wished she had shut the door. She shrugged in answer -- it wasn't as if she had exhaustive information anyway, and she suspected Oin was just asking because he was an old goat. His eyes were actually twinkling, and his mustache braids -- even more ornamented than Dori's -- did not entirely hide his grin. "He had them, anyway," she muttered.

Oin laughed, sounding triumphant. "All right then," he said. He turned to the wall, which was inset with hundreds of metal drawers. From behind, his resemblance to Dwalin was startling -- Oin was also exceedingly tall and broad, and his tangled mane of hair as wild as his cousin's. Then he turned back, and his expression was guarded in a way Dwalin's never could be. He held up a glass ampoule, its top twisted and sealed, its contents an unassuming whitish powder. "Feed him first," said the healer, "and give him wine if he'll take it. Mix this with a spoonful of ointment, and apply to a soft part of the skin -- under Mahal's apron would be best. If you touch yourself so much the better; it'll work on you together. Then," he took Nori's hand, dropped the ampoule in her palm and closed her fingers around it, "you'll have three or four hours to work it out of him."

"Work what out?" Nori was bewildered, and even more embarrassed than before. The glass felt terribly fragile in her grasp.

Oin shrugged and let go. "Whatever ails his heart. You might talk, you might fuck, you might -- oh, you should chain him down. Use something heavy. Dwalin's strong."

As if Nori didn't know that. "Me? Aren't you the healer?"

Oin snapped, "So wouldn't I have healed him if I could? I've got a ward full of orc-poisons and Men as fragile as flowers, and I haven't had a death in three days. But my cousin doesn't want me. Dwalin's heartbroken, and you've got more of his heart than his old cousin ever did."

"What if I can't?" She hadn't wanted to say that, and Oin glared.

"He won't die," said Oin. "He's not some stupid tree-shagger to fade away over a loss. Someday he might come out on his own, or his hands find Mahal's work to do in that chamber. You do what you can, or don't. If you don't use the medicine, leave it at the front desk." He pushed past Nori and stamped out without another word. She peered through the door, watched Oin scrub bandages and put them in a pot to boil like some strange soup. As soon as she could move unnoticed, she slipped out and fled.

She wandered Erebor's hallways with the ampoule in her sleeve, tucked between a lockpick and a knife. Stone-sense did not require a light. Nori was never entirely lost, but rarely certain where she was either. One moment she'd be breathing the dragon's dust, and the next a memory would strike her: wasn't this the amethyst garden where she had played tetherball, as Dori and Si sat together playing chess? But where were the fire-works? Oh, there -- but she wasn't looking for her childhood. She was looking for chains. Eventually, she found Erebor's jail.

Nori suppressed a laugh, though nobody was there to hear her. She wondered if she and Dwalin would have met there, as they had in the cells in Ered Luin -- or would Nori have never been a thief, if Erebor had never fallen? What if she'd been a clock-maker and perfectly honest, and Dwalin a scholar like Balin, or... her imagination ran out. There were no fire-works in the jails, and she had not brought a light. But there were cuffs and chains, iron ones and mithril. The first she found held bones to a stone chair in a hall of the justiciar, and she turned away light-headed. There were more, neatly stored on pegs, and she took the heaviest armful she could carry. They chimed softly, like bells, as she returned to the Company's Hall.

Suppertime had come and gone, and Bombur and Bofur were relaxing in their kitchen. Many liqueurs and brandies had aged spectacularly in Erebor's cellars, and the brothers Ur had taken up the craft of mixing and blending them for tastes. Tonight they had brought in a great barrel of fresh snow, and were drinking a slush of vanilla and cherries from a barrel put up in Nori's childhood. Bofur waved Nori over and mixed her a saucerful while Bombur set about piling up a plate with cram and cold-smoked fish. She had better manners and better sense than to object. Her mouth was full of alcohol when Bofur said, "So what are the chains for?"

Nori choked, and thanked Mahal that a cherry didn't end up lodged in her nose. "Therapeutic," she said, as Bombur pounded her on the back. "Medicinal. For Dwalin, of course."

Bofur whistled. "Strong medicine, eh?" He leaned back. "What ails our general that chains are going to fix?"

"Burnt to a crisp if I know." Nori chewed cram to clear her throat. "Dori says talking will help him, and Oin gave me a medication and told me to chain him down when I give it. But we're both supposed to take it, and I don't know how I'd chain myself down as well -- not that Oin mentioned that part. And no, I don't want to ask," she said, forestalling Bofur. "If I'm not out in the morning, send in Dori." Which would serve him right.

Bofur whistled again. "All right," he said, and left it at that. Bombur piled up a second plate, then put it on a tray with a large lump of honeycomb, which made Nori grin. Bofur rummaged through their bottles and came up with a squat one bearing a familiar label: a white bird on the wing over a blue ship. "You'll like this," he said, with a disarming smile.

Dorwinion. How did Bofur, of all people, know? Nori didn't ask but only thanked him, feeling her grin stretch her face. "Thanks; that'll be useful," she said, remembering OIn had suggested wine.

"Ah, you know what else might be useful...." Bofur left the room, and returned with a small, bright malachite jar in his hands. He opened it with a flourish. "Very smooth stuff," he said, a leer curling under his mustache, "useful for salving and soothing all kinds of pains."

Nori looked at him narrowly, wondering if Oin had spoken to the Ur brothers behind her back. More than likely, she thought; the Company had lived in each other's pockets for so long, and Oin was always a gossip. "Thank you," she repeated. She tried for a Dori level of icy politeness, but halfway through realized she meant it. She found she was smiling, and Bombur patted her shoulder.

"Call me if you need any help," Bofur added, wiggling his eyebrows as well. Nori laughed outright, but there was no making a further delay. She squared her shoulders as Bofur added the jar to the tray, shrugged the chains across her back, and carried all her burdens down the hall.


	3. direct negotiations

Nori didn't knock. Dwalin had never once answered to any clapping or banging, so she had long since given up. The rooms were locked, but that was only a formality to Nori anyway. She slipped the pick back into her sleeve and the ampoule out of it before she opened the door.

The room was warm, the gas-light burning low. Dwalin sprawled on the bed, eyes closed but not snoring -- as always it took Nori a panicked heartbeat to recognize that he wasn't actually dead. "Hullo, you," she said, and his eyes opened. "I've brought you something to eat, and Oin's compliments besides."

Dwalin nodded, barely moving, and his eyes slid shut again. Nori sighed and set the tray on the nightstand. Chaining him up like this seemed ridiculous, but if the medicine stirred him up overmuch she supposed she'd be grateful. The bed was heavy, wrought iron, and the mithril shone against it like the moon upon a dark sky. Nori had been imprisoned herself on a few horrifying and memorable occasions, and she felt the irony of it as she set cuffs around Dwalin's wrists and ankles. He didn't move, and she said brusquely, "Sit up. Bofur found you Dorwinion something as well, brandy I guess, and you had better appreciate it."

Dwalin obeyed, opening his eyes again. Their piercing blue was obscured by swelling from his cheekbones to his brow ridge, dark as if he'd been crying constantly rather than sleeping. He didn't seem to notice the chains. Nori poured brandy into a mug and handed it over, and Dwalin said mechanically, "My thanks to him," and drank. He went on to the cram, chewing each bite exactly ten times before swallowing. His expression didn't change, and Nori wanted to scream.

Instead she dropped the ampoule from her sleeve. She opened the malachite jar -- the lid would do for mixing, and she spooned in a measure of the salve (white, creamy, smelling like one of Dori's soothing teas). The ampoule snapped open, the medication poured in, a stirring of the spoon, and it was ready. Under Mahal's apron, Oin had said, but Dwalin's was settled low and secure, as it had been since the battle. Nori sighed inwardly and summoned up her courage. "I'm going to touch you now," she said flatly. "It's a medicine. It's supposed to help you talk about whatever it is that's making you lie around like a bear over winter." She felt like an idiot, as if she were talking to a tree. Dwalin nodded, chewed a sardine exactly ten times, and swallowed it. Nori scooped salve onto her fingers and reached for Dwalin's crotch. He moved a thigh over for easier access, and she prodded through the thick hair to find the apron's edge. She had never touched anyone like this, and found it extremely discomfiting; she tried to think of Oin, which did not help. Dwalin's gaze met hers again when she found the closed slit. It was hot beneath her fingers -- Dwalin was always hot -- and shockingly soft. She rubbed the salve in and Dwalin blew out a hard breath. They were close enough to kiss, but that seemed wrong, and Nori drew back.

He was still watching her. If you touch yourself so much the better, rang Oin's instructions in her mind. She considered excusing herself to do so in private, then excoriated herself for it -- however this treatment worked, running out was unlikely to help. She fiddled with her belt one-handed and dug inside of her own clothes. Mahal's apron was ever-so-slightly retracted, and her hammer felt heavy between her legs, and Dwalin's gaze was locked upon her. The ointment on her fingers buzzed against her skin like electricity, and she bit her lip. Dwalin's eyes widened, and he said, "You could take your pants off."

Nori blushed. "Would you like that, guardsman?" she asked. Dwalin didn't answer, but he set the cram aside. The cuffs flashed bright against the dark hair at his wrists, above the black ink of his tattoos. "I should lock those down first," she added, almost to herself. Dwalin nodded.

He didn't ask questions as she pushed him down on the bed, arranged pillows behind his head and knees, and spread his limbs towards the bedposts. She wrapped the chains securely and clipped them, leaving a little slack -- enough for Dwalin to move a little, but secured against his raising a kick or blow. Even after all they'd been through, she felt a sick pang of pleasurable relief at having Dwalin restrained; she knew he would never harm her, but now there was no way he could. And it did make for a pretty picture, his bulk stretched out upon the rumpled sheets and furs. She grunted appreciatively when Dwalin pulled against the cuffs, muscles flexing. His brow knit and he asked, "What's this about?"

He sounded wary, which was the most involved he had seemed to Nori since the battle. "Oin said you should have it with the medicine," she said, leaning in and gripping his shoulder in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Dwalin looked uncertain, and she hurried on, "It'll be three or four hours. You're supposed to talk, well, like Dori talked to you in Mirkwood? It's a medicine like that. I can get Oin for you if you'd rather," she added, and was relieved when Dwalin shook his head. "Besides, I like you this way."

A corner of his mouth twisted up and he nodded, settling back. There was a hint of his old arrogance to it, making a show as he arranged himself with the chains taut and pale upon his dark pelt. Nori licked her lips. This was exactly how she liked him -- strength on display and entirely under her control. Mahal's apron still spread low but rippled faintly as she watched. "Ahhh," Dwalin sighed as she pulled her fingers across him, shoulder to sternum and down over his belly. "All right. I don't know what I'm supposed to talk about, though."

Nori shrugged. "I don't care if you talk or don't. I'm worried -- we're all worried -- because you never do anything, you've hardly moved since the battle. You haven't left these rooms. Balin was in tears after he visited you and wouldn't talk about it. What's wrong, love? What do you need to make it right?"

Dwalin sagged, somehow, despite the restraints; his eyes closed. "Thorin... died," he said finally. "Fili is dead. Kili is dead. We have Erebor after all, but it will never be right. It'll just be how it is." Tears welled up around his eyes, though his voice was steady and quiet and reasonable.

Nori sat down abruptly, seizing Dwalin's hand in both of hers. "Eada died," she answered, "and I won't meet her after the end of the world, either. She's a woman of Men, and I should have been too. But I was born a dwarf," she said, all the bitterness of her life in that last word.

"I'm glad you were," said Dwalin, which hurt. "I'm glad you weren't a Man who died. You're part of how we retook Erebor. And I get to love you," he choked on that, then steadied, "and we'll be together again in the Second Song, no matter what happens in Middle-Earth. Would you," and he waited until Nori met that sad blue gaze, "give up all of that for Eada? Or to be a woman of Men?"

Nori startled; it had never occurred to her to think of it that way. "Well. No," she said finally. "I wouldn't trade Eada's love for yours? Or a quiet life as a clockmaker for Erebor restored. That's selfish. My brothers deserved this city. And you," she almost laughed, "seem to think I deserve you."

Dwalin was the one who looked away. "You deserve better," he said. "Someone who leaves the room from time to time."

Nori shrugged. "You can stay in here, for all of me," she said. "It's just that we're worried. That there's something you need and haven't got." She paused, thinking. "Thorin?"

Dwalin was weeping again as he nodded. "This was for him," he said, "his city, where he should have been king. But he was my king, in the mountain or out of it. Holding the mountain again is good and right; in the end it's as much for the family Ri as for Durin. But Thorin's gone," the last word bitten off.

"Not like Eada," said Nori. "You'll have him again in the Second Song, right?" She was never sure if she believed in those myths or not, but Dwalin probably did.

Dwalin nodded, hesitant and small. "But that wasn't our work together," he whispered. "That's Mahal's deed and not our own. The Quest was ours. We succeeded, but Thorin's gone." This time the last word drew out on a long breath.

"I'm sorry," said Nori impulsively, throwing her arms around him. He was warm as ever, though his pelt was rough with neglect. She rubbed her cheek against his chest. "He was a good person, and I know you loved him. He was a good king," she added, though her mind was full of another memory: Thorin in his rooms at Rivendell, kneeling naked before his warriors, Dwalin looming behind him like a guard and a god. "I loved him too, in my way," she said, realizing as she spoke that it was true. "I thought at the beginning I would disobey him, that he would be like any other law. But he wasn't like that. He was trying to give us something, not keep stuff away."

"Aye," said Dwalin, and went on uncomfortably, "well, that was the hope of our laws. We didn't serve you well in Thorin's Halls. In Erebor, maybe we'll do better."

There was a long pause before Nori pulled away. "But you're gone, too," she said finally. "It hardly matters that you're in Erebor." Dwalin flinched, and his Durin-blue eyes snapped shut. "You're keeping yourself away," she finished, and he pried his eyes open slowly, glittering with tears.

"I just," he said, and stopped. "Nori. I'm forsworn and worse if I keep talking about Thorin."

That hurt, since she'd told him how she'd been forsworn herself all those years in the Blue Mountains, and suddenly she wanted to slap him -- for his secrecy, and ironically for his pain, when they could have been rejoicing for their mountain reclaimed. "If you won't talk, then what?" she asked, clenching her hands in her lap.

"I don't know," Dwalin whispered. "It hurts, and I keep waiting to feel better, to heal? I cannot mourn him properly, nor my younger cousins either. I keep drawing designs -- I'd want it on my fingers, which braided the crown in his hair -- and I can't, it can never come out right --" He started crying, slow, racking sobs, very quiet. "He died on the mountain, and I wasn't even hurt -- I can't even cut him into memory --" Nori listened, silent and fascinated, until Dwalin's breath only sighed. "He shaved my head and did my ink," he added, "after Fundin my father died. It hurt, and that was right, as I mourned him in the pain of my heart. Even now it tells..." and Dwalin choked off. He was crying again.

"So." Nori struggled with Dwalin's words and what he left unspoken, and how the story might unfold towards a healing. "You want me to get OIn and have him ink you?" Dwalin shook his head violently. Nori went on in frustration, "I can't do it. I don't know what tattoos mean; it's chicken-scratch for all of me. If you wanted braids, I could weave in all your love story." He shook his head. Nori was reasonably sure Dwalin could not read braids well, if at all. She had sometimes put a knot in her own underlayers for him, unseen but available to a lover's touch, and he never seemed to notice. It gave her a way to be more honest than comfort allowed, and now she gave him a way out: "But of course that wouldn't hurt, or heal." They were silent a moment, Dwalin's shaking reduced to a fine tremble. "I could cut you deep enough to scar," Nori added, "like carving a runestone --"

"Aye. That." Dwalin interrupted, voice hoarse. "That would be all right."

"What?" She realized what she'd said, staring at the raised ridge that bisected Dwalin's face from temple to beard. "A scar?"

Dwalin was smiling, peculiarly, with warmth but no mirth. He had stopped shaking. "Thorin was a battle I lost," he said with finality.

"But we won," said Nori. Dwalin looked back at her silently. His eyes gleamed blue in the firelight, the same shade Thorin's had been. Nori swallowed hard. "It should have a stone in it," she said, to her own surprise, "the Arkenstone." She felt the stolen treasure again, tugging in her heart, icy and demanding.

"No ink and no stone," said Dwalin, and Nori shook her head.

"It's long gone, anyway, and good riddance." She stole a glance towards Dwalin's abdomen. Mahal's apron still mostly covered his modesty, but its edge had curled slightly back; something gleamed in his dark curls. For a moment she mistook it -- the glitter looked like wetness, as if Dwalin had a cunt, and Nori gasped. Then her stone-sense pricked her. It was only a diamond, an ornament on his war-hammer. Nori wanted to touch it, anyway.

"And I won't be king," Dwalin added with surprising ferocity, and the cold claw of the Arkenstone lost its hold on Nori entirely.

"I know," she said; she had eavesdropped on Balin's visit. "Dain's coronation is at dawn." Dwalin's brow lowered as he nodded.

"Cut me now," he said quietly. "I'll bleed out the battle and wear my king as a scar." Nori blanched, but she nodded back.

"I won't swear to Dain either," she said loyally. She still wasn't certain about the cutting, but Dwalin seemed to be. Perhaps it was the medicine, perhaps only love, but she would not deny him anything, however strange it seemed. "Do you still have my knife? The one I left on your pony, a little thing with an antler grip."

Dwalin nodded. "It's under the pillows," he said, and she scooted behind him. Dwalin raised his head and twisted in the chains to allow her access. And there it was, slipping into her hand as neatly as if she had never given it away.


	4. resolutions and inquiries

"You still have your pants on." Dwalin's voice was wry.

"You haven't put on pants in weeks," she answered, trying to match his tone. Dwalin shrugged. Nori climbed over him carefully and sat cross-legged at his side. "What's it matter? Do you want me to cut you or fuck you?"

"I feel better with your skin on mine," he said simply. "Sometimes when you're in my arms asleep, all the world goes down just to holding you."

Nori stared. She had no idea what to say. She started to tuck the knife away up her sleeve -- but no, that was wrong; she should be taking off her shirt, not hiding things in it. It was easy to be wry when she snorted at herself, placing the knife dead center on Dwalin's chest instead.

His pelt was thickest there, the two sides meeting in a line of little curls, its darkness slashed here and there with iron-grey marks of old scars. They formed a blurred map of many battles, and she knew she could not add Thorin's mark to those memories. Dwalin had mentioned his hands -- they were scarred too, many times, and inked over and under with lines Nori did not understand. She reached to touch one, turning it palm-up in the cuff, and he would have closed his fingers around hers if she had not drawn them away. She skipped over the cold metal band, tracing the thick tendons on the inside of Dwalin's wrist (also scarred, though not tattooed), the thin shivering skin inside his elbow, the cut beneath his bicep where his hair was silky and fine. "Here?" she asked abruptly, pressing into his skin with a fingernail, scratching in the rune for thorn. Dwalin gasped and pulled against the chains, and Nori's heart swelled as his muscles went taut beneath her touch. She looked into his face. His mouth was open, his chin trembling. She shifted to touch beneath it, the soft secret bare place behind his beard, and her hand came to rest just above his collarbone. "Here," she said, and his beard brushed the back of her hand as Dwalin nodded. "All right."

Nori felt dizzy. She fumbled at the ties on her shirt. Dwalin was watching and she could not turn away, despite the hot pricklings of modesty and shame. She hated most the moment where she lifted the hem and her thick body pelt came into view, but Dwalin spoke up then: "Yes, love, let me see more?' His voice was hoarse and pleading, and she looked into his eyes as the sleeves fell from her arms.

She lay down on his chest to wriggle out of her pants, and Dwalin sighed, relaxing in the chains. Her knife gleamed against his dark fur, a fingersbreadth in front of her face. Her apron had drawn up -- Mahal help her, was that appropriate?? -- but there was no helping it, and once naked she thrust a few times against his thigh, her hammer burning. She groaned, thrust again helplessly, then recovered herself enough to say "I'm sorry, my beauty, I hope that's all right..."

"That's wonderful," said Dwalin immediately, chest rumbling beneath her cheek with the deep purr in his voice. "I love it when you want me, so much..."

"Ah...." Nori sighed and pulled herself up to sit anyway. The knifeblade caught the light and gleamed white, and she looked back to see Dwalin's war-hammer fully engorged, gems glittering like stars in many colors. "But I'm going to hurt you," she said. "I'm no surgeon, and not even Oin could make a painless scar."

"It should hurt," said Dwalin slowly. "Probably more than just the scarring will. Would you, can you do that for me?"

Nori considered, and yes, she could -- she'd probably caused him pain before, with teeth and nails and enthusiasm, without much thinking about it. "I will," she said, then added in a rush, "but I want to make you feel good, too. Is that all right," her voice wobbled, "if I try that?"

"Yes, please, yes," Dwalin was whispering now, "please Nori, do."

She leaned up to kiss him, their hammers sliding together before their mouths met, and picked up her knife in the same motion. Dwalin's mouth was hot and Dorwinion-flavored, alive and aggressive with teeth and tongue. She bit his lip; he gasped and pressed into her until she tasted blood. She gasped back, drawing away, then leaned in to lick slowly at the iron taste above the sweet. "All right, Dwalin my beauty, Dwalin Thorin's soldier" she whispered back, "all right."

She sat up again, to see the little drop of blood bead like a cabochon ruby, watched Dwalin lick it away himself and swallow. She pushed his beard aside with one hand, and with the tip of the blade traced the rune upon his skin -- not hard enough to wound, but so that a red welt rose up on his pale skin. A little larger, she thought, going over the mark again; then a slight flare at the ends, and the vertical line stronger. She thought of Ori practicing his shapes with a pen and giggled, then leaned forward to lick and kiss where she'd marked. Dwalin was struggling in his chains -- they rang like bells, and she could feel the muscles tensing through his chest. "Lie still, love," she told him. "The battle's over, and there's nothing more to do but feel it and be healed."

The chiming stilled and Dwalin's breath grew rougher. Nori was harder than ever, and dragged her hammer across his, loving each little prick and press of the gems, the unique touch-flavors of corundum and granite and diamond. Dwalin's paps were temptingly close, and she took one in her mouth, sucking gently as it swelled and heated and warmed. Unwilling to let it go, she took her knife to the other one. She parted the hair around it, circled it, then scraped the tip lightly across, watching while it mirrored the one on her tongue. Dwalin was murmuring now, his chest rising irregularly beneath her head. She slipped the knife up his chest to his throat and felt his voice vibrating into her fingertips. Fascinated, she sat up again, pushing his beard aside to see. The rune-mark had faded a little, and Dwalin fell silent as she traced over it again. This time she added the crown of Durin, an arc of seven stars, just above. The space was too small for proper stars, so she scraped in single short slashes, each at a different angle. Tears fell softly from Dwalin's eyes, and Nori bent to kiss them away. "Is this how you want it, love?" she whispered in his ragged ear. "Does it hurt enough, is the pleasure all right?"

Dwalin swallowed hard, and Nori lifted the knife so he could speak. "Yes," he sobbed, shockingly loud, "yes, please, more," and she let the blade fall back to his throat.

"Good," she said, surprised at the force in her voice, and also at the joy in her heart. She moved onto the bed beside him, tickling his side with the knife and her nails until he laughed, helpless and shocked. She turned her mouth to his arm, sometimes kissing, sometimes biting hard, then sucking on each great finger and licking the delicate skin in between. When she buried her face in his palm, his fingers wove into her beard and held her still; even bound, his strength was irresistible. She struggled for a moment, enjoying the pull against her jaw (and that was pain as well, and seemed fair?) -- then placed her blade deliberately across the tendons of his wrist. Dwalin let go.

When she turned, his war-hammer loomed before her eyes. Its veins were throbbingly full and the gemstones burned with colors like chemical flames. The tip was dripping wet, and again Nori thought of cunt, the heat and taste she could never forget -- and she took Dwalin into her mouth, just holding his cock between her lips and on her tongue. This was more salt and less sour, thicker and stickier, but Dwalin's gasp of pleasure was as sweet as anything Nori had heard in her life. She toyed with him, now sucking the the tip, now biting down the length, her knifepoint teasing the thin skin behind his stones. When his breath skewed into panting, she pulled the knife away and pushed her face down there, dragging her tongue over Dwalin's forge. The heat there fired her further, and she realized she wanted very much to come.

She pulled away, sat up so she could look Dwalin in the face. Tears still ran from his eyes, and his mouth was wide, lips bitten dark. "I'm going to spill on you, and I'm going to make you spill too," she said, and his eyes grew dark. "Shall I cut you before or after?"

"I don't know, I don't,"he gasped, and there was no way she was going to take a blade near his throat while he was writhing like that. So she reached to the table, scooped up a handful of salve, and clasped their hammers together. They thrust against each other, eyes locked, and Nori dropped the knife to hold on with both hands. She let her fingers toy with Dwalin's jewels -- that precious private hoard, his secret treasure that she wanted -- and he stiffened and shuddered and spurted, hot as licks of fire, dripping down over their cocks and her hands.

There would never be a better moment, she realized, and reluctantly she let go. She moved up on Dwalin's body, clasping his cock gently between her thighs, wiped her hands on a blanket and picked up her knife. Her own cock pressed into his pelt as she moved his beard aside and cut into Dwalin's skin. Two strokes for the thorn, the red blood rising after the blade like ink following a pen, then the seven tiny slits for the stars. It took less than one breath to complete -- one of Dwalin's breaths; Nori found she was holding hers. Then she pressed her mouth to his throat, in apologetic kiss and greedy taste. Hot iron filled her senses; she thrust, and her vision blurred bright red as she came.

When she could think again she realized she was still mouthing at Dwalin's throat. He was quiet, and when she lifted her head, she saw that his eyes were closed. She felt both heavy and extremely light -- her limbs had gone liquid, but her heart was as clear as an empty sky. She rose slowly from the bed, drank some brandy, then drew some water and drank that. She filled a bowl and found a cloth and cleaned: first blood, then sex and sweat, and finally her knife. Then she tucked the knife back among the pillows, and unlocked all the chains. She saw that Dwalin's eyes were open, red at the rims, but no longer wet with tears. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Was that all right?"

"Yes," he answered definitively. "Yes. I will be all right." He paused, looking thoughtful. "What would it take," he asked as she sat back, "for you to feel all right? I mean how you want to be. Like a woman of Men."

Nori gasped, and if she'd still held the knife she'd have dropped it. Her empty hands clasped one another. "I don't know," she said finally. "It's not as if it's possible. It's not really how I was born."

Dwalin shrugged. "You hadn't been born that way when you were twenty, either," he said. "What might you like? You could wear dresses -- very fine ones, if you took part of your share in furs and fabrics. You could bare your cheeks as I bare my head, though I'd miss your beautiful beard -- it is your face to do with as you please. Everyone could call you she -- it's only Westron, it doesn't mean much; not like you want to be called a dwarrowdam without a dwarfling."

She stared at him while those images danced and collided and sparkled in her mind. It was not possible, and yet Dwalin proposed it, just like he'd ask if she wanted honey in her tea. "I don't know," she said again. "It all sounds wonderful? I mean, I'd like all that, I'd love it. But my body..."

Dwalin's eyes half-closed again, and his expression turned dreamily lascivious. "Bifur might want you to nurse Thorur; women of Men do that, right? And I'd pray to Mahal that you kindle for me -- you'd have your cunt again and we both would love it." His eyes moved down her body, and he was smiling now. "We could call you the Lady of Erebor."

Nori gasped and stared. She could think of no response. A stray drop of blood slid over Dwalin's shoulder, and she leaned in to kiss it away. "Go to sleep," she said, "you're mad as mercury. You'll have your scar to show for it, and I... well. I don't know what I will have."

"You've got me," he answered, stilly dreamy. Nori snorted, turned down the light, and settled in at Dwalin's side. Perhaps she would find an answer later; for now, whatever they had -- the mountain, the blood, the questions -- were overwhelmingly more than enough.


End file.
